


stop breathing, it's easier

by freehimandhisbrother



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Demonic Possession?, Gen, Horror, minecraft au, scarefest challenge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-20 10:07:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2424809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freehimandhisbrother/pseuds/freehimandhisbrother
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>--until, best-case scenario, you rot away so there’s nothing left of you.</p>
<p>(Or: On a scale from one to ten, Geoff Ramsey is fucked.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	stop breathing, it's easier

**Author's Note:**

> written for week one of the Scarefest Challenge. october 8th is totally part of week one, right? right. nothing is wrong
> 
> contains decent amounts of body horror and messing with people's minds. also bad jokes.

When the news first arrives, Geoff wants to call bullshit. It stutters through the comm system in bursts of static, at first only warnings from SlowMoVille, then updates from all across the map. It's all speculation and panic, but one of the solid facts is that something is _taking_ people. The thing is almost a horrible disease, like some fucked-up zombie apocalypse, except that for bonus points the Entity (the nickname on all the comms) _thinks_ , supposedly, slips into people's minds and does... _things_ , fucks up its victims body and soul. The villages are freaking out, bearing horror stories and emergency broadcasts, and Geoff _so_ badly wants to call bullshit. Like everybody's freaking out over nothing, or if nothing else it won't hit anyone here.

Geoff, however, is pretty much a magnet for implausible shit.

It takes a month after the first incident--possession? Infection? Whatever the fuck you want to call it, whatever the Entity does, it's way too long for something so obvious to come up. It takes a full month for the man on the comm system to mention that oh, yeah, the victims can't die.

"No shit," says Geoff, "since when can any of us die?" He enjoys that last moment of hope, and then the man clarifies: respawn doesn't work. There's no cure in death, not like starving or bleeding out. It’s all guesswork and panic, but that part is proven as dicks. SlowMoVille was nailed in the ass by the Entity, and they’ve tried everything to get rid of those it takes. Arrows don’t work. Swords don’t work, even if you cut people’s heads off with the strongest diamond blades around. (Some of them figure out how to put their heads _back_ ; others just don’t give a fuck.) One group even managed to lock a couple in a room made of TNT, once. Nothing was left of them, and yet a day later they just reappeared in the resultant crater, transformed even worse but otherwise unharmed. They don’t die, plain and simple, and if you’re unlucky enough to become a target you’re just fucked, trapped in inhuman screams and-- _changing-_ -until, best-case scenario, you rot away so there’s nothing left of you.

“So,” says Michael into the ensuing silence, “basically, go fuck yourself.”

Gavin lets out a strangled sort of giggle as Ryan curses under his breath. Ray makes some witty comment that no one hears. Jack says nothing, only exchanges a look with Geoff, who sees his own disbelief mirrored in the larger man’s eyes. They share a moment of _fuck no_ , and then in a storm of static the broadcast cuts out.

They’re lucky, really. Achievement City is secluded enough, cut off by the forest and a few weird mechanisms that Geoff and Gavin have built over the years. The giant wildlife statues sort of give their location away, but if any of the Infected manage to stumble their way here, the Hunters (as they’ve started calling themselves, at some point) have plenty of defenses.

“When you think about it,” says Geoff, “I mean, we’re not _totally_ fucked.” _I hope,_ his brain appends.

Jack shrugs. “Yeah, well. I hope so.”

That draws a chuckle out of Geoff. “Dammit.”

“What?”

“I was thinking that too, but I didn’t want to say it.”

“In case you jinxed it?” Jack looks up from the sword he’s making. “It’s probably worse to pretend nothing can happen.”

“Yeah,” Geoff grumbles. “I just don’t want to think…”

And then Jack doesn’t particularly look anywhere, instead staring into space. He settles on, “I know.”

“This is _bullshit_ , is what it is.” Geoff’s fist slams into the doorframe. “God, if anything happens to _anyone_ I’m gonna piss. It won’t happen. Fuck that.”

“Yeah,” says Jack, running a hand through his hair. Repeats, again: “I know.”

For the next few days their precautions go into overdrive. Gavin goes on an expedition under Jack’s house and brings back a shit-ton of lava. Ryan retreats to his house, pulls out his old books, and does some cryptic enchantment shit. Since Ryan’s busy, it’s Michael’s job to relocate the farms, and he manages to lure in all the livestock without killing anything. Slowly, using the lava and the water Ray gathers from the nearby stream, a wall of obsidian begins to grow around the edges of the city. There’s no breaking obsidian, not without diamond, and especially not if you’re a horrible mindless fuck with no idea what you’re doing. _Good luck getting through that one, assholes_.

And Geoff _almost_ thinks they’re okay.

Then, after a long day’s work on the wall, Geoff hardly sleeps thanks to the shadows playing across his eyes. He wakes up with a wet sort of migraine, like something is sloshing around in his head. Getting up takes almost supernatural effort, but eventually he manages to drag himself toward the bathroom. It doesn’t feel like a hangover, more like this weird-ass, melting kind of _pressure_ , but if he acts like it’s a hangover (god, he’s practically immune by now, he’s not sure he can recall the last time), maybe he’ll feel better. Shortly after taking a piss he stops to look at himself in the mirror. He looks tired as dicks, and he lifts his hand to rub at his eyes and--uh.

Uh, what the fuck.

Geoff lowers his hand, turns it over and back again, and feels his heart sink all the way to his stomach. It’s the middle finger of his left hand, like maybe God wants to give him a better way to flip people off. The skin there is impossible pale, but dotted with gray like he’d smeared it in ash. And it’s--the wrong shape entirely, stretched an inch too long and flattened, and definitely not what a finger should look like. He pushes at it experimentally: it moves back into place like putty and sends a hesitant sparking sensation all the way up his arm. It can bend all the way back, and beneath the watery flesh he feels rubbery shards of something that he abruptly realizes was once his bones.

His thoughts go like this: _Oh God_ , and then _What the fuck_ , and then _Fuuuuuuck_ , and it takes a lot for him not to throw up. Something pulls back and retreats into his chest as he realizes the rest of his hand doesn’t feel right either, not really. Geoff sinks slowly to the floor and closes his eyes, willing it to be anything else, like there’s some other damn disease flying around that could fuck him up this badly. He makes a soft sound and bites down on the inside of his cheek. Something-- _moves_ \--catches around the edges around his vision. Except it’s more of a _lack_ of something, a cavernous, gaping emptiness, the same sort that’s trying to flood around his mind.

“Fuck,” he manages, shaking his head. “Fucking _shit_ , oh god.”

He bandages his finger as tight as he can and finds his old gloves to hide the evidence. He’ll look fucking stupid walking around with armor gloves and normal clothes, but maybe the others won’t notice. Maybe it’ll go away like a cold, who the fuck knows? Maybe it’ll stop here and he’ll just be the ultimate middle-finger guy. He’ll be fine. He’s fine.

When he goes out to the wall, he finds only Ryan, feeling up the wall like somebody’s ass. Ryan looks immediately at Geoff’s gloves, but he keeps up a fairly normal conversation for, like, two minutes. It’s mostly updates, where the others are (the usual spots, mainly) and last night’s news from the rest of the map. Most the big towns are short on supplies; the Entity nearly hit the comm station and for an hour the broadcast sounded like hell. As soon as that bleak talk dwindles off, Ryan gives him a very specific look.

“So,” he says, enunciating like an asshole. “Gloves.”

“Fucking _yeah_ , gloves.” Geoff fidgets. “Anything else you wanna tack onto that?”

Ryan’s expression softens, which is akin to stabbing him in the chest. “Do the others know?”

“I just fucking got out of my house! What, do you think I went sleepwalking to--?”

He stops himself. He’s as good as confessed, and he berates himself several times for being a dumbass. He feels something in his hand _move_ , twitching against the border of his skin. Ryan raises an eyebrow, as if he’s not sure what else to do. The radio lets out an abrupt noise and dies down again and Geoff is fucking terrified.

“Go...you should...tell them,” says Ryan.

Geoff swallows. “Fucking, Ryan the--perceptive guy,” he says, and then: “--Yeah. I’ll get the others.”

And he leaves it at that.

 

\---

 

Sometimes, before everything went to shit, Geoff would gather everyone at the bulletin board and give the most dramatic announcements. Group assignments, news from beyond Achievement City, the weird escapades they were about to get up to with adventures or rare occurrences--that sort of thing. Geoff leans against the board now, right hand clamped around his left wrist. The others stand around him, curious--except for Ryan, the cheating bastard, because he just had to find out already. Geoff avoids looking at Jack, sensing that he’s probably figured out just by the meeting. He’ll cross that bridge in like two fucking seconds, give him a moment.

“So,” he says. “Guys? We’ve got a _big_ fucking problem.”

He stares at them--a bit theatrically, he admits, like if it’s a show it means it’s not real--and they stare back. The pause not only overstays its welcome but also kicks its feet up and pisses all over the guest room.

“Okay?” Ray crosses his arms. “Good talk.”

Michael hits Ray in the shoulder. It’s a familiar motion, playful and reckless, and it’s a wonder he’s never broken anyone’s arm. “Shut the fuck up. He’s trying to give a speech!”

“Huh. Did you hear him, then? ‘Cause I didn’t.”

“He was waiting for you to go fuck yourself, is why.”

“I mean, to be fair,” contributes Gavin, “nobody was _saying_ anything, were they?”

“See?” says Ray. “Gavin knows what’s up.”

“Well, no, I’m just saying that’s not really a _speech_ if there’s no speeching going on.”

It’s a wonder the lads don’t break into a scuffle then and there. Usually, though, when they’re starting up the games, they manage to wait until the signal to kill each other. Geoff notices Jack’s concerned gaze on him and loses the half-smile that had appeared on his lips.

“--You mean _speaking_ , dumbass?” says Michael.

“Well, yeah, that.”

Maybe the other Hunters still keep this up. If Geoff fights while he still can he can make sure this bullshit doesn’t touch anyone else. (Oh God, he thinks, it won’t even kill him.) He can’t be _that_ asshole, putting off telling them. He takes a breath.

“You guys done?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. They finally shut up, and Geoff’s grip tightens around his wrist. “So like I was saying fucking forever ago there’s a problem.”

“Besides the whole Entity thing?” asks Michael.

“Yeah, well, kinda.--No.”

“Okay. Geoff, what is it?” That’s Jack, standing up straighter, hands clasping in front of him. “C’mon.”

Geoff swallows and it tastes like blood. “...It’s me,” he says. He pulls up his sleeve, revealing how it’s already crept up to his elbow. “I’m the problem.”

They’re all kind of freaked out, but that much is a fucking given. He pauses a moment, averting his gaze from his forearm, where he can _feel_ it trying to push his tattoos aside. In the process, though, he manages to accidentally meet Jack’s eyes, and that’s even worse. He lowers his sleeve again and waits.

“--What?” Gavin splutters. It’s barely even a word. ( _Wot_? Asshole.) “But there haven’t been any around here! How does that work?”

“How the fuck am I supposed to know?” Geoff snaps. “Maybe it’s not like we thought, maybe the Entity can come after _anyone_ regardless if it gets somebody near you, and we’re _all_ fucked. I don’t know! This is _bullshit_ , I don’t-- _dammit!”_

He stops himself about a thousand years too late. No use sharing his frustration, his desperation with the others--it’s far too late for that. (For...for _him_. Fuck.) Geoff closes his eyes, pulls in a breath that cuts at his insides.

“Okay,” says Jack, again. “We’ll figure out what to do, all right? If that’s...what happens, we’ll make sure you don’t do anything.” He pauses. “Maybe if you let me do your part--”

“No,” says Geoff. “No. I’ve gotta fucking make myself useful, alright? I’ll handle it.”

“More like, uh, manhandle it?” Ray tries. It’s pathetic, nowhere near the quality of his usual jokes, but Geoff appreciates the effort. “Yeah, I got nothing. The joke’s that Geoff’s gonna jerk off.”

“Dunno how the fuck I’m supposed to do that,” Geoff mumbles. “Have you ever tried it with gloves?”

“Well, I mean uh, leather, right?” It’s such a fucking stretch, not even an innuendo, but good enough for the circumstances. “I won’t shame you if you’re into that.”

“God _damn_ ,” says Geoff. The noise he makes isn’t quite a laugh, but it’s close enough that he feels a bit better anyway. Right, he thinks. The reports are kind of vague, he might make it for awhile yet. This thing can go fuck itself.

 

\---

 

He's not sure when he loses track of time, when the world begins to withdraw in a thickening fog, when he stops knowing why he pushes back against the noises in his mind. It's easy to give up that knowledge, to adapt to the unnatural rhythms and the thing _pulsing_ under his skin and to slip just a bit further away. He awakes one morning and looks in the mirror to see a jagged gash running all the way up his jaw, stretched to his ear, which has moved back a bit and out of the way. He feels at the indent with distant curiosity, and something stirs in him as he realizes he doesn't know what it should be like. He has to study the other side of his face, the one that counts as Probably About Right, to figure out how to put it back. His vision flickers on occasion and he'll fall away from his body for a second, see himself from Ryan's gaze far away or the corner of Michael's eye. He feels a rippling sort of impact when he brushes against the growing walls, like he can't keep track of what parts of the world are him or not.

The other Hunters are a solid presence around him, a handhold on the cliff that stretches to an impossible abyss, but his fingers are slipping like they've forgotten how to hold on.

He works on the wall, like that will help. It's a faded sort of dream logic--go here, put these blocks down, then they'll be safe, somehow, you're okay--but he feels like he's doing something, at least. The obsidian now reaches halfway to his original roof. He probably would have fallen to his death a few thousand times if not for the fact he can levitate. The others probably would have stopped him sooner, too. He can feel Jack about to suggest a break, the words half-gestated on his tongue, stopped only by--dammit Jack, that better not be fucking pity--but fuck that. Geoff doesn't want to think about stopping. He's not sure he can.

It's something stupid that finally gets to him. His hand twitches _just_ to the side as he places a block, and obsidian ends up on the side of his house instead. It looks fucking ridiculous suddenly, a chunk of obsidian tetris-ing off the stone.

"Shit," he manages, and he can't stop laughing. He thinks his laugh used to be different, but right now it's just moving out of him hysterically and for what feels like forever he can't fucking stop. When he manages it eventually, he's choking on spit that tastes like celery and copper. His side hurts, his head hurts and it's not really as funny anymore.

Jack looks at him and gestures, and Geoff makes his way to the platform a bit reluctantly. Jack keeps looking.

"Geoff," he says eventually, "maybe you need to stop for a second."

"Can't," Geoff slurs, clumsily wiping tears from his eyes. "Gotta put th'wall up."

"Do you know why we're putting the wall up?"

It's like a fucked-up trivia game. "It's...keep you all safe."

"Safe from what?"

He knows the answer to that one, buried deep in his chest, but he's not sure a word is powerful enough to voice it. "Mn," he says instead. "Fuck the shut up.” That’s not right. “Shut th’fckup.”

"Geoff." Jack's voice is stern. "How are we supposed to do that when someone's working themselves to death _inside_ the walls?"

"'Mnot gonna die." God, he wishes he could. "That's th'fucking problem, isnit?"

" _Geoff_ \--"

"I'm not gonna...not gonna...fuck."

He loses the thought he was trying to say, but that certainly wasn't it. Whatever, he's also not going to fuck, that's fine. Jack reaches out and grabs him by the arm, then winces, looking away. It takes Geoff a minute to figure out why; it's his left arm, and he must still have it wrong, somehow. He's trying, but his head fucking _hurts_ hurtshurts and he can't figure out--it shouldn't do _that_ there, should it? Ugh--

Jack's voice brings him back to reality. "Come on, we're going back down." Geoff finds himself being half-dragged down the makeshift steps, which of _course_ Jack had made to speed up the process. That registers as Jack-ish, at least. They'd had a joke at some point, hadn't they? They’d had plenty of jokes, exaggerations somehow. Michael is angrier than he really is, Gavin’s a dumbass but plays extra dumbass sometimes...Geoff is…?

As much as Geoff hates to admit it, it's a relief to have solid ground under his feet. He's already sitting, for some reason, leaned against the forever wall of his house. Jack slowly sits down beside him. “We’re just gonna rest here for a little bit, okay? Then I’ll take you over to the others.”

“‘n do what? Jack, don’t fuckin’...”

Jack looks like he’s not sure what to say. Geoff knows, knows that things are getting worse and he can’t even say for sure how he started--and if _he_ can tell everything’s wrong, it must be obvious as fuck to everyone else. They’re going to waste time watching him or something, making sure he doesn’t--do--anything? (he’s not sure what he would _do_ , but there’s a sense that it’s Not Good), and keep track of him like a whiny shit of a child. He’s running out of time and he doesn’t want to...doesn’t want...

God, and everything hurts.

“Hey,” says Ray, “so what’s going on?” He and Gavin and Michael had approached without Geoff noticing. Ryan isn’t far behind them, sticking to the sidelines.

“We’re taking a break,” says Jack. “Geoff isn’t feeling too good.”

“‘M’doing fine, you cock. I…”

“Oh, yeah,” says Gavin, like he’s planned to say something like this. “We were thinking we’d all have a break here, like a little picnic-do."

"We've got steak for _years_ ," says Michael, raising the basket he's holding.

"So what do you think?" asks Gavin, and their eyes meet. Geoff doesn't know what he thinks. They're acting like he can't fucking do anything, like he's already gone, like he's a lost cause since a week ago, and he feels something crawl into the hidden recesses of his heart and die there--fuck, and the words slip just out of his grasp, and he hates it he hates it. How can they--? How can he, ???

Geoff stands up, slams whatever he was holding onto the ground. He feels more than sees Gavin jump, and his fingernails dig into his palms, almost pushing through the backs of his hands. "Fuck off," he spits, and he's turning and walking away before he quite manages to think about anything. "I'm'n'be in the house."

Feeling five pairs of eyes on his back, Geoff makes it to his door. He stumbles once, maybe, or more than once, but he gets the door open and slams it behind him like a damn child, and once he's made it to the far end of his house he sits down and buries his head in his hands.

 

\---

 

"He's been in there awhile," says Ryan. Geoff _hears_ him; his voice is muffled and warped through the walls, but Geoff could almost hold the words in his hands, they're clearer than anything he’s heard in his life. "Should we go check on him?"

Shit, he manages to think. Don't...don't do that.

"I don't know," says Gavin, "I mean, I don't want to--"

"What, make things worse? I don't think you _can_."

"First time anyone's ever said that about me." Gavin tries to inject some pride into his voice, but it's all fake, fake a layer of ice crackling over the freezing air.

"This isn't like Geoff," says Jack. "He would've come back out by now." A shift, and Geoff sees him standing on the other side of the walls, like a misted-over, half-awake sort of dream. He tries to check to see if he's still in the house, but it's hard--he feels at the stone floor but only half-feels it, the other half is an aching emptiness, and then the dirt the gents are sitting on, and then stone again, and he's finding it hard to move in the first place, at the moment.

"I'm going to see if he's okay," says Jack, and he's moving toward the door.

Fuck, thinks Geoff. Fuck, for christ's sake, don't. Something's different, something's gone wrong in the indeterminate eternity he's been inside, and something inside him curdles because Jack will know and it's all fucking wrong and Geoff can't fix it and the Entity won't even kill him, oh god shit, everything's fucked up and he can't even remember what it was like before the walls and before the broadcasts and before this fucking nightmare. _Jack_ , Geoff thinks as loud as he can, _get your ass away from that door--_

It comes out garbled, a tortured torn-up mess, but somehow Jack _hears_ him. And then Jack, being a huge dick, freaks out, sending shockwaves of memory through Geoff's body where he's pressed himself into the far corner of the room. "Oh god, Geoff, what the fuck was that? Hang on."

Jack's got the door open, has made it halfway to Geoff across this fucking ridiculously long house. You could probably see it from space. God, Geoff's a fucking idiot.

_Don't,_ he tries to say. Jack's at his side. "Don't--d-don't I don't w--ffffuck oh god I d--"

"Geoff, calm down." Jack's voice shakes, moves in and out of focus like a shitty recording, the world's worst echo. "We're gonna fix things, okay? Stay with me, we've just..."

Geoff's vision cuts out, pulls away as the _thing_ forces his arm up and gets his feet half underneath him. It grabs his mind and pulls him underwater and drowns him and he's standing up, Jack is right there and it's not fair how he's okay Geoff reaches for him and all he sees is that infinite slashed-open awful _nothing._

"Fuck," says Jack. There's a sound like shards of glass in his throat. "Not now, come on..."

And Geoff feels _it_ break his mouth open wide and it's almost like smiling really--fuck, no, nono _nonono_ no--and something bursts free underneath his skin and he's moving and it's dark and

 

\---

 

“Oh god no, no, no, no--”

“Fuck! Somebody help me hold him, he’s--”

“Dammit Geoff, come on, don’t do this. Come on come on, _fuck_!”

“ _Jesus_ , dammit, what the fuck! Okay we’ve got him _oh god_ \--”

“Gavin, stop screaming your ass off and fucking do something!”

“I’m trying, oh god, Geoff? Geoff are you there? Geoff?”

“We’ve gotta do something with him.”

“Fucking thanks for that useful fucking input, you worthless fuck. God, _shit-_ ”

“Geoff, come on, come back, stop, come on--”

and a desperate, strangled scream wrenched from his throat--it sounds wrong in his ears, too far away and falling apart from rust and--stop, stop, stopstopstop _stop_

 

It stops. Everything stops.

**Author's Note:**

> to be fair, those towers of tetris are pretty funny
> 
> (part one of three, because i fucked up.)


End file.
